Oh, sure, we’ll have more hot days. Into the 90s this weekend and beyond. But they can’t win. Just yesterday morning I pulled on a fleece jacket for my early-morning walk. Testing for dryness, I stuck fingers into dirt still cool and moist from a days-old rain. I’ve watched the sun slip behind the mountains’ cloud banks earlier each time I drive home in the evening, and I know that soon, the farm-stand vendors will have to break out the woolen hats and gloves for their early-morning shifts.

And I’m only just now seeing red in my cherry tomato patch. Lots of little green marble-sized fruit, but the ripening has barely begun.

A Colorado summer always flies too fast for me, that mere handful of weeks between freezing and sweltering, between praying for rain, then dodging hail, then running outside at midnight to shield against the frost. It seems as though only the most vigorous things can outrun it — obstreperous zucchini, bounteous beans, blithe sunflowers — like this dark, sultry beauty a co-worker dropped at my desk. We don’t even know its name or which seed packet spawned it.

But their garden was pretty much fine, just fine, which tells me the hail was spotty and, though sometimes huge, not incredibly sustained. Then again, there were no squash, no melons, no cukes in their gardens. They have mainly xeric perennials, herbs, shrubs and snack veggies with smallish leaves — peas and the like — which tend to shrug off such storms. I haven’t yet had a chance to check on my own beets, beans and tomatoes in the backyard, or the beets, beans, tomatoes and peppers in a community plot I rent.

Becky Hensley is the co-founder of Share Denver - a community craft space in Park Hill. She's also the proud Ninja-in Chief of the Denver Craft Ninjas -- a women’s crafting collective dedicated to keeping the DIY spirit alive through laughter, shared skills, and cocktails.

Colorado native Mark Montano is an international designer, artist, author and television personality. He has appeared on TLC’s “While You Were Out” and “10 Years Younger,” as well as “My Celebrity Home” on the Style Network, “She’s Moving In” on We TV, “The Tony Danza Show” on ABC, and “My Home 2.0” on Fox.